Roving Periscope: After US and Europe, India exiting Afghanistan

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: As the West’s strategy unfolds in an orphan Afghanistan by pitting the reloaded Taliban against China, and pinning Beijing down in the fast-radicalizing Muslim-dominated Xinjiang, India has asked its nationals to leave from places in and around Mazar-e-Sharif in Balkh province of the mountainous country.

Afghanistan is resurfacing as the newest geopolitical theatre in Asia with old actors playing out in a new drama. In the 1980s, America had created the Taliban Frankenstein, with Pakistan’s help, to sink the ‘Red Monster’ Russia in Kabul by the 1990s. The theatre is the same and so are the actors. This time, Washington’s devil is China. Welcome 2020s.

America’s strategy to revive the Taliban had commenced in the Donald Trump era when Washington engaged the militia in several rounds of “peace talks”.

Its results unfolded when, after 20 years of an inconclusive “War on Terror”, the American-led NATO forces quietly left Afghanistan in the dead of a night in June, without even officially informing war-torn Kabul they had been trying to make survive. Their sudden departure paved the way for the Islamist militia to retake control of the restive country. The West also left behind a lot of arms and ammunition to enable the Taliban to retake Afghanistan.

Ever since the Islamist militia is ousting the hapless Afghan army and the formerly US-supported government of President Ashraf Ghani from one province after another. Sections of even Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTK), and the fanatics of the Pakistan Army have also reportedly joined the Taliban offensive. Some Pakistanis’ corpses have returned in body bags, media reports said.

In this muddied geopolitical conundrum, both Pakistan and its evergreen’ friend China apparently find themselves clueless and friendless. While Islamabad is trying to mislead others that it still calls the shots in Afghanistan and the Taliban, a frightened Beijing has feebly appealed to the Taliban to shun violence. Both these countries are worried about a possible Taliban blowback in Baluchistan and the Pakhtoon areas and how to safeguard the $ 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The Taliban, which has reportedly trained about 40,000 Islamic militants from Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslim community in Badakhshan areas of Afghanistan, has, so far, made politically correct noises to keep atheist China in good humor—it cannot launch an offensive in Xinjiang unless it fully captures Afghanistan.

Amid these uncertainties, other countries are also vacating the field in Afghanistan to ease a Taliban takeover.

On Tuesday, the Indian Consulate-General said that it has arranged a special flight from Mazar-e-Sharif to New Delhi which will depart on Tuesday evening.

“A special flight is leaving from Mazar-e-Sharif to New Delhi. Any Indian nationals in and around Mazar-e-Sharif are requested to leave for India in the special flight scheduled to depart late today evening,” the Indian Consulate-General in Mazar-e-Sharif said.

“Indian citizens desiring to leave by special flight should immediately convey their full name, passport number, date of expiry by WhatsApp at the following numbers: 0785891303 0785891301,” the Consulate-General added.

This followed after the Taliban, on Monday, captured another provincial capital in the North, Aybak city, without any resistance from the Afghan armed forces, many of whom are Taliban sympathizers.

Also, the militia has intensified assaults on the capitals of Balkh (Mazar-e-Sharif); Baghlan (Pul-e-Khumri); Badakhshan (Faizabad), and Farah (Farah), while clashes continued in Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, and Herat cities.

Last month, some staff of the Indian embassy in Kandahar was evacuated due to the deteriorating security situation in the province.

Earlier, India had hinted that it will bring back its nationals and officials from Afghanistan if the security situation worsens as the Taliban is making advances and capturing more provinces.

According to reports, the Taliban now control almost 85 percent of Afghanistan and are heading to take full control of Kabul in the next few weeks.